The Best Fantasy Book Series

Although I came late to the party, I was one of millions aghast and bereft when the third season of HBO’s Game of Thrones ended. I’d only recently become hooked, after watching season two in its entirety one rainy Sunday, so barely two months later I couldn’t believe it was already over.

So what to do? Read the books, naturally. But believing I’d never read any fantasy before, I wondered if George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fireseries would be my cup of tea. So I started looking into exactly what ‘fantasy’ is.

Fantasy takes place in imaginary worlds with their own complex cosmologies – histories, social structures, forms of magic, races, religions, mythologies, flora and fauna - even songs, poetry, and language, are all purely the product of the author’s imagination. The process of ‘worldbuilding’ is extremely important to both writers and readers of fantasy; J.R.R. Tolkien spent years developing Middle-earth for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it is still considered one of the most fully realized fantasy worlds. These imaginary worlds can exist separately from our own, real world, as in Tolkien, or they can exist in parallel to it with crossover between the two, as in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Sometimes, the imaginary world can exist within an otherwise realistic version of our world, as in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

But wait a minute. I’ve read The Lord of the Rings. I’ve also read The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. Even the worlds of Beowulf and Homer’s The Odysseyfit that description.That means I have read, and loved, at least some fantasy already.

Some literary elitists will often pigeonhole fantasy books, particularly series, into a category to be avoided, believing it consists of an interchangeable cast of stock characters populating formulaic plots set in imaginary medieval worlds full of dragons and wizards, all housed behind cheesy cover art. (Guilty as charged.) But even based on just the few examples above, it’s clear that isn’t necessarily so. (Well, maybe they’re onto something with the covers.) Fantasy can go far beyond standard medievalist settings, with stories that play out in alternate versions of the American old west, like in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, in magical realms where animals talk, like the world of Redwallby Brian Jacques, or in gritty urban settings, like that in The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

And far from depicting only simplistic, one-dimensional heroes and villains who represent ultimate good and evil, fantasy characters can also subvert those stereotypes, with protagonists who range from the morally ambiguous to the downright amoral, such as those in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law Trilogy China Miéville’s New Crobuzon, and Matthew Stover’s Acts of Caine.

Like all genre fiction, fantasy has too often been cast as one of literary fiction’s poorer cousins, but ultimately, all good fiction is just a good story, about interesting people, well-told. If a book can deliver those things, who am I to judge it just because somebody shelved it in the ‘Fantasy’ section? Especially since I’ve been reading books from that section for years without even realizing.

Now, back to Game of Thrones – then on to pick my next series. Here is a selection. Which one would you recommend? And which ones have I missed?

On With the Fantasy

A 10-volume series chronicling the complicated world of the Malazan Empire, plagued by bitter warfare, ancient sorcerers, and imperial legions. The series is often compared to Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

Crime investigation in an alternate version of 1985 England, where the Crimean War still rages, genetic engineering has brought back the Dodo bird and the woolly mammoth, and literary tourists can move in and out of novels at will.

The traumatic death of his life-bonded partner leaves young Vanyel emotionally and psychically blown open, revealing all of his magic, music and psychic gifts at once and making him a Herald-Mage. First in a trilogy.

Only one of 10 planned books is currently available, so this technically can’t be called a series yet. But based on Sanderson’s reputation and response to the first book, and with the second due out early next year, this could be the next big thing.